Sword Art Z
by Quequay
Summary: "a new world came swimming into view, I was stood in an open plaza surrounded by renaissance buildings, the sky was clear and there was a quiet chatter of NPCs and players in the city in the background." Gohan POV
1. A new World

"Why have you called us woman? I could be training." Vegeta growled impatiently.

"I'll tell you when piccolo and Dende arrive." Bulma replied annoyed.

Most of the z gang were here in Capsule Corporation, Trunks, Vegeta, Yamcha, Tien, Krillin, Piccolo, Bulma and me – Gohan. that could mean only one thing, we all knew it but no one said it. There was a global crisis that needed our help not that I was complaining if I wasn't here mom would be making me study. Looking about the faces of everyone here, I realized that this had become a normal part of our lives.

We all stood about awkwardly waiting for piccolo and Dende – they took the longest as they had to go slow and were coming all the way from the lookout. I could sense they had arrived, all eyes par Bulma's turned towards the door as it opened.

"Now what is it woman?" Vegeta asked straight away clearly wanting to get back to training.

"This" she said flicking the TV on and onto a news channel.

"10, 000 gamers are trapped in the first virtual reality game. If you know one of the gamers do not try to take the nerve gear off as this will kill them, I repeat do not take off the nerve gear. If you have one of the few untouched nerve gear helmet do not enter the game as you will become trapped. Do not enter the game . . ."

As the news continued to trickle in it became clear that there was nothing the government was going to do, that apparently they had to clear the game to escape and potentially 10 000 people could lose their lives. Everyone looked shocked par piccolo, Dende and Vegeta. Dende probably already knew something bad had happened what with being kami, Vegeta probably didn't really care and piccolo hid his reaction.

"So?" Vegeta said.

"So? So! . . . So we have to help them!" Bulma responded looking on the edge of tears.

"Can't you override the systems or something? I mean you're a genius can't you do anything?" Krillin asked confused.

"I can't do anything because I helped design the entire system to prevent people hacking into it; I also design the nerve gear and programmed the physics engine." Bulma whispered looking ashamed.

"Can't we wish them out with the dragon balls?" I asked that seemed the easiest way.

"No." piccolo cut through the almost hopeful silence. "I don't like this but we can't rely on the dragon for everything, what if we use them now and then a bigger crisis comes next week and we need the Dragonballs again." Piccolo stated calmly leaving no room for argument.

"Well what can we do?" Tien asked knowing Bulma wouldn't call us without reason.

"I have one of the nerve gear helmets, I kept one of the prototypes after we finished, we could send one person inside the game to clear it faster." Bulma offered.

"Is there nothing else?" Dende asked clearly not liking how helpless we were right now.

"Umm . . . no." Bulma looked thoughtful before making up her mind.

"Well who goes in?" Krillin asked.

"Me!" Trunks had sensed the seriousness of the conversation and stayed quiet but he couldn't resist this opportunity.

"No you won't young man!" Bulma said sternly.

"One of the fighters will go" Vegeta stately gruffly.

"You idiot you don't take your body with you, you'll be just as weak as me in there."

"True but when you fight at the speed we do, your mind and reactions are almost impossibly fast." Tien stated calmly.

"What kind of game is it?" Krillin asked wondering who would be best suited to trying to complete the game.

"MMORPG, so it's killing monsters levelling up. You know swords, spears, bows and arrows but mainly swords." Bulma said.

As soon as those words left Bulma's mouth Piccolo's head snapped towards me, from the look on his face I could tell what he was thinking.

Clearly my throat to get everyone's attention I said "I should be the one to go." I paused to let it sink in. "I learnt some sword fighting techniques under piccolo's tutorage."

"But Gohan what will Chichi think?" Bulma said not wanting to deal with a hysterical Chichi. (Chichi had stayed at home to look after Goten)

"10 000 lives are more important than my mother's approval." I replied without skipping a beat.

"Ha! The brat's finally got some backbone!" Vegeta's mocking laugh echoed across the room.

Ignoring him I said: "anything extra I need to know about this game?"

"Yeah . . . lots." Bulma was almost smirking and trunk's was grinning.

An hour later and we'd gone through the basics; levelling, the different stats, quests, NPCs, monsters, EXP, Bosses, sword skills, weapons, different character builds and specific Sword art online knowledge like the flooring/ boss system of Aincrad or the multitude of different skills ranging from cooking to battle healing.

The different stats and how you allocated your skill points was something trunk's (who apparently was an avid gamer) said was very important; in Sword art online most improved each time you levelled up but you could further improve them with skill points.

Trunks and Bulma were like walking encyclopaedias of Sword Art Online, with this in mind I asked; "why did you help in making this game so much anyway Bulma?"

She looked down at her feet looking like she was deciding how to answer, looking back up she spoke. "Think about the uses of Virtual reality, it could be used to train someone for a dangerous job giving invaluable experience with no risk to human life. It would be a breakthrough similar to my father inventing the capsule . . . but with this setback"

I nodded in understanding, but with this setback no one would trust virtual reality and it might go to waste.

"One last thing . . . the physics engine works perfectly." She said quietly.

"You mean Ki? Super saiyan?" I asked hopefully as they'd give me an edge.

"As far as I can figure they should but . . . I couldn't tell for sure. Come on kid it's time to log on." Bulma tried to be cheery but I could see how much she hated that she had almost caused this.

She led me to a lab room with a bed in the middle, an I.V. drip and a nerve gear helmet. The walls were a pale cream and there were no windows making the room look dreary. Attaching me to the I.V. since I wouldn't be able to eat for the foreseeable future.

"I'll gather the others." She said grimly as she left the room.

I sat in the room going over what I had learnt from Trunks and Bulma over the past hour or so trying to plan what I'd do once in the game but with so many variables it was an impossible task. My heart beat rose in response to the challenge set before me but I knew I needed to stay calm for now and act rationally at first.

Before I knew it Bulma was back with; Krillin, Piccolo, Tien, Vegeta, Trunks, Dende and Yamcha in tow. Looking at each face individually I saw different reactions. Tien, Yamcha and Krillin looked worried. Trunks looked excited and was still grinning. Dende and Bulma looked like they were ashamed that they couldn't help and were concerned about me. Vegeta looked serious but said nothing only folded his arms over his chest and nodded at me which was probably the best I'd get from Vegeta. Finally Piccolo managed to look both serious and stoic but also worried and concerned.

From the looks on their faces I knew no words were needed they were worried but I'd been worse situations much worse, they knew that and trusted that I'd survive and help as many as possible. Picking up the nerve gear helmet I put it on my head and laid down on the bed.

Taking a deep breath I shouted. "Link start!"

The room I was in faded to black whilst the faces of my friends blurred and disappeared altogether. I slipped into unconsciousness and a completely new world filled with new challenges and death every step of the way.

Darkness surrounded me, in every direction as far as the eye could see. Silence. I waited a moment then an enlarged version of my menu appeared that allowed me to customize my character name and appearance, except the appearance part was blocked out. I stood Staring at the name section thinking for several minutes, before smirking and entering my choice and pressing confirm. There was a few seconds when the system checked whether that name was taken. It wasn't. From then on I was known as _Saiyan_.

There was a few moments delay before a new world came swimming into view, I was stood in an open plaza surrounded by renaissance buildings, the sky was clear and there was a quiet chatter of NPCs and players in the city in the background. Taking it all in I paused for a second _this is all in my head?_ The thought was astounding.

Breaking out of my trance like state I checked my inventory, I had 1000 col. strolling through the city I found an NPC weapon vendor. Buying a sword that was similar to the one I had used as a child – a long sword with balanced build (it had average stats and average swing speed). That left me with 500 col which I decided to save as I was unsure if I'd need and armour yet.

Stopping as I remembered what Bulma said about the physics engine, I tried to create a Ki ball . . . nothing happened. I tried to reach into the well of power that was my super saiyan transformation but again nothing. I could feel my Ki but it was so minuscule that I couldn't make though I could still sense where people were and how strong they were.

Leaving the city I stretched my senses outward searching for the nearest monsters – their Ki was different primal and very primitive but not evil. Finding a boar about as high as my chest I approached it whilst manipulating my menu to equip my sword. In a flash of light there it was on my back. My slow walk transitioned into a light jog then a flat out sprint as I tested my limits in this avatar, as I reached the boar it noticed me a second before I embedded my foot into the underside of its belly. The boar fell onto its side from the impact, but as I checked its health the blow had done very little _so I can't use martial arts then. _As I was about to glance away I noticed something next the health bar was a flashing icon depicting a head with three birds flying around it. The dazed symbol! The flashing meant it only had a few seconds of activation left. Smoothly transitioning into one of my basic katas I watched in amusement as each hit caused the dazed status preventing the boar from attacking back.

A minute later I stopped and checked the boar health – it had barely dropped. I stopped deciding to let the boar attack. To my eyes each attack was slow and predictable making dodging them very easy, letting one hit me I saw my health drop by a tenth and felt a slight pain. _So the pain is just enough that you know that you've been hit._ Drawing my sword from its sheath upon my back, I slashed at the boar dealing a third of its health leaving it with just over half left _hmm no dazed status_. Side stepping a charge of the boar I slashed down into the back of the neck of the boar, scoring a critical hit and killing the boar instantly.

A screen popped up showing what the boar dropped and the experience I had gained. Taking the few items, I moved onto the next boar. Remembering what Trunks' said about sword skills I got the attention of the boar with a lunge of my sword before jumping back and readying my sword for a simple Slash skill. My sword glowed light blue, as the boar charged towards me. I waited and waited, then released my sword skill obliterating the boar and dealing a large amount of damage compared to a normal swing however after the skill I couldn't move for several seconds. That was what Trunks' had called cool down. Sword skills offer _more damage but leaves me open to counters_

Moving on I continue to kill the Boars until I reached level 2 at that point I decided that my character would be a balanced build so I could deal enough DPS but defend myself, I decided against tanking as the creatures moved so slowly my reactions would be good enough to save me and not pure DPS as I'd probably be soloing and wanted to maximize my survival chance. To this end I placed my skill points on each stat with a slight emphasis on strength to increase my damage. After which my experience per Boar dropped I continued to kill more Boars but then my Experience rate dropped again and a message appeared. It read; you have killed 100 Frenzy Boars, after killing 100 of the same Enemy you have learnt all you can from it and so your experience gain drops.

Deciding that this was a good a time as any to stop I glanced at my health expecting it to be around half from when two Boars attacked me and caught me by surprise, however it was closer to three-quarters of my full health. Realizing that my health must regenerate slowly over time I returned to the starting city.

After buying some potions and selling my drops, par the old long sword, to an NPC. I equipped the rusty long sword as it had much better stats. I strolled around the starting city until something caught my eye an NPC called the skill trainer.

Talking over to Him I asked "what's a skill trainer?"

"I'm a skill trainer, I can teach you a multitude of skills and allow you to switch between different skills if you want?" it replied.

Intrigued, I said "please."

As soon as I said that a menu appeared with two tabs the first allowed me to learn new skills like blacksmithing or tailoring, the second showed which skills I had unlocked already and how to put them into my two skill slots. At the minute I had only unlocked one skill, Basic Sword Skill at 20/1000. Pressing it gave a description; Basic sword skill said everyone started the game with this. Switching back to the first tab I scrolled through the options before picking one handed sword, sprint and parry. One handed sword skill improved my damage with one handed swords, their swing speed and unlocked more advanced sword skills, Basic sword skills improved the damage of my sword skills reduced the cool down and I presumed allowed me to unlock advanced sword skills, parry unlocked sword skills that blocked different attacks and reduced the damaged taken when parrying and sprint increased the speed at which I moved whilst this seemed trivial in a battle if I could dart in do some damage and retreat before a monster could retaliate it was worth it. There were more that I could get from this NPC and probably some you could get in specific ways but I thought that four were enough to level up for now considering I could only level two at once.

As I closed the tabs, a golden question mark appeared above the NPC's head – the symbol for a quest. I stepped back wondering how I activated it before the NPC began speaking.

"Wow! You're eager to learn new things. There's rumour of a Cloth armour skill, wanna hear about it?"

Considering my options, I'd need armour soon but I was disinclined to wear mail armour because of the speed reduction despite the stat gain and leather had the same problem.

"Yeah tell me about it." I replied, if I decided to go for Mail or Leather I lost nothing in gaining this skill. The NPC told me of a small village in the north east of the third floor that was home to a master tailor. I was mildly surprised no one told me about quest that spanned different floors. Sighing I turned to leave the starting city.

"Time to level some more." I mumbled.

Stretching out my sense as far as I could encompassing most of the first floor I moved toward a group of monsters that's Ki suggested they were around level 3 or 4. Since my experience with the Boars I realized I could easily fight above my level if only by a few levels.


	2. The First Floor

Jabbarulez – No because he doesn't have a tail, if he did well I can't give that away can I?

Final-zangetsu – I think of Gohan as being around 16-17 making Trunks 6-7 (if I remember right) and since he's Bulma's son he could have any game he wanted and If it were me I would definitely want this game and would try to learn as much about it as possible before it came out so that's why trunks seems to know quite a bit.

* * *

I stood deep into the wilderness area of the first floor, in a vaguely circular clearing with rocky Mountains on all but one side. A light breeze blew through the area ruffling my hair and clothes; the sun was high in the sky with no cloud obscuring it _how can the sun be inside this giant castle? _The view was almost picturesque, I say almost as from several directions mobs closed in on me ruining the silence and tranquillity.

The mobs climbed down from the surrounding mountains and entered from the only entrance to the clearing, _so they've respawned. _The mobs, bloodthirsty bandits, were level 9 had swords and were the only mobs I had encountered that could use sword skills. They all looked the same with bright red leather clothes each wielding a short sword and a shield and were bald.

I closed my eyes taking a deep breathe, calming and focusing my mind. It had been a week since I had entered this death game, and since then I had hardly slept or eaten training nonstop except to repair my equipment or buy new gear. It turned out that in this virtual world I didn't eat like a saiyan and a didn't need sleep with the only consequence being my reactions dulled and my mind was groggy but even with my reactions dulled they were still fast enough. In this week I had also learned that Bulma's physics engine worked very well even allowing me to use Ki . . . but since Ki was my life essence using it expended my Health points.

Drawing my sword, sturdy Long sword, I charged at the closest Mob ducking under its horizontal slash I stabbed into it calf causing a slowed de-buff to appear. Continuing forward a ducked and sidestepped through five mobs striking each as I went passed. Seeing that the other six mobs were lined up in front of me I activated forward lunge, a basic sword skill that surged forward four metres dealing piercing damage to anything in the line of attack. As I waited for the cool down from my sword skill to end I heard the shattering of a mob dying, it was probably the first mob hit by forward lunge as the first mob hit takes the most damage.

As soon as the cool down let me I span around, the closest Mob was only two feet away. I lashed out, my foot connecting with it's chin sending it reeling from the force but doing minimal damage. I rushed forwards slashing diagonally down at a mob on my left, my sword going through it's head and scoring a critical hit killing it, before parrying a horizontal slash sword skill from my right I used the delay to chop the Mobs head off. I blocked three consecutive strikes as the mobs began to surround me; I took a nick to the shoulder and a slash across my ankle slightly depleting my health. Punching a mob in the face dazing it whilst simultaneously slashing the throat of another instantly killing it, with the slight lull in combat I jumped backwards.

With my back now pressed up against a rock wall, I surveyed the battle ground, seeing that seven mobs were left most with health around half. This happened within a second before they were upon me again, swords flashing and grins on their faces. In a furious exchange I finished another two but my health dropped to three quarters of its maximum. Blocking a simple vertical strike I activate the skill counter kill which if activated shortly after blocking or parrying or dodging an attack performed a counter with high damage, because of the requirements to activate both the damage was high and the cool down was short. As soon as the cool down wore off I jumped straight upward, narrowly avoiding a horizontal slash, twisting around mid-jump I kicked off the rock wall and soared over the heads of my adversaries. Landing lightly on my feet I charged in to the remaining four mobs literally disarming one before it had chance to turn to face finishing the helpless mob with a vertical slash. Jumping forward and using gravity to my advantage I slammed into the sword of one of the mobs dazing it and before it could react I chopped both legs off at the waist, leaving the mob to die from the bleeding wound de buff, I moved onto the last two parrying their strikes with ease for several minutes to level my Parry Skill before decapitating them both in one slash. A message appeared before me.

Taking a moment to glance around the clearing to check in case I missed any Mobs, there weren't, I looked at the message it read:

Congratulations! You've reached level 12!

Distributing my skill points, I Closed the message planning to move to a different area as the experience I would gain from the mobs here now would be hardly worth killing them, but another message appeared saying:

You have killed 250 Bloodthirsty Bandits, after killing 250 of the same Enemy you have learnt all you can from it and so your experience gain drops.

Closing this message as well I was about to leave the area when a voice drifted in from behind me.

"You've killed 250 of me finest men." The speaker clearly an NPC, looking at his name I found out he was called the Bloodthirsty leader. He wore red leather like the normal bandits but it was trimmed gold furthermore he wielded a long sword and a tower shield both of which were also trimmed in gold. He wore a completely golden helmet obscuring his face. Despite what he said he looked calm almost bored.

Redrawing my sword I waited seeing if this was a quest of another mob to kill.

"What of it?" I asked.

"What of it? Now I've got to kill you, that's how things were around here boy!" he shouted his voice echoing off the different mountains.

_Well I guess they don't call it the wilderness area for nothing. _With his last line said he drew the shield and sword that had rested upon his back, the sword was almost six foot and the shield covered all of his body. I smirked _this is going to be interesting. _

He charged forward and as he did a bar appeared above his head next to his name indicating he was an enemy. I blocked his first strike only to have him lash out with his shield; it was only thanks to my reactions that I dodged. Pushing against our interlocked swords I found that I couldn't overpower him meaning his strength stat was equal to or higher than my own, not missing a beat my fist shot out colliding with his face and stunning him, as he stumbled backwards and his guard broke I slashed across his chest three times. The dazed status wore off and his guard was instantly back in place, glancing at his health I realized I only managed to do about a tenth of his health. The difficulty of this fight settled in but my only thought was _I bet he drops some awesome loot._

Our fight continued for several more minutes with me slowly chipping away at his health but his AI was analysing every move I made making it harder and harder to land a hit. I reduced his health to about half the original before things started going wrong, I Parried a vertical strike and activated counter kill as I had several times, but as the predetermined sword moves played out his sword and shield crashed into my sword one from each side, with the sword hitting near the hilt and the shield hitting near the tip causing the sword to twist and fly out of my hand. With the sword skill interrupted the cool down was cancelled. Jumped backwards to avoid a horizontal slash, I glanced around searching for my sword only to find it off to my left. Before I could dash of towards it the Bloodthirsty leader struck from my left forcing me to dodge and positioning himself between me and the sword.

Cursing slightly I ducked under another horizontal slash, jumping up after the sword passed over my head my fist slipped past his shield slammed into his chin in a powerful uppercut, as he stepped back to regain his footing I realized that the dazed status was much shorter than usual, capitalizing on what little time I had. I span round performing a wicked round house kick landing it on his cheek bone, as he almost flew to the right from the blow landing in an undignified heap I shot past gripping my sword from where it was embedded in soil.

I paused realizing something, whilst he could block most of my sword strikes, my martial arts in skill alone were simply too much for the AI. Smirking I shot forwards feinting as though I was going to perform a diagonal strike, the NPC responded by preparing to block and counter. At the last second I dropped to the ground bringing my leg across slamming into his legs and knocking him over. Jumping up I switch to a two handed grip to get more power and damage, slamming me sword downwards it struck through his left arm cutting through it entirely.

The NPC scrambled backwards before climbing to its feet discarding the shield in favour of picking up it's sword _so it still entertains the idea of killing me? _The loss of most of an arm depleted it health by a large amount and coupled with the now bleeding wound status meant that it was only a matter of time before it died, and so it did in less than a minute the lack of shield made it easy to score multiple hits without letting it score any back.

After it had shattered into many pieces a message appeared containing the loot gained and the experience gained. Scrolling through the loot, there was some leather armour that was quite good but not as good as my armour, pausing as I spotted the next item it was called The Bloodthirsty Sword. It had much higher stats than my sword almost double and furthermore it had a strange description. "As the wielder gets weaker this sword gets stronger." _What does that mean? I won't get weaker I'm going to get stronger and level up more so that doesn't make any sense. _Shrugging I equipped it to find that it was blood red with a golden trim, a simple hilt and guard and it was almost four feet long.

* * *

The next day I meet the Rat, supposedly the best information brokers. The rat was supposed to know everything about everything in this game. I'd returned to the starting city in hopes of finding a Player vendor so that I could buy some new armour and potions. I was strolling through the streets of Starting city in the vendor district when it happened.

"Hey you!" turning around I saw a robed figure. They were short only about four feet tall. The voice was feminine. The robed figure had run over and had their hands upon their knees hunched over breathing heavily as though they could get tired in this world. Taking a deep breath they continued.

"Where'd you get that sword?" pointing at The Bloodthirsty sword that was sheathed on my back.

Unsheathing it and laying it horizontally on my hands so they could get a better look, I said.

"This one?" At their nod I continued "I was killing Bloodthirsty bandits and a Bloodthirsty leader appeared and dropped it. Why do you want to know?"

"You don't know what it is do you?" at my confused look they continued. "It's a unique weapon, there's one on every floor each has good stats but that not what makes them good. They have unique abilities, the one from floor one the damage of the weapon increases as you lose health but it changed where it dropped from the beta."

"You were in the beta?" I asked shocked, only one thousand people got to go into the beta and anyone from the beta were like encyclopaedias on this game.

"Yeah I'm the Rat. Ever heard of me?" that was a rhetorical question, everyone had heard of the Rat.

After a short silence they continued. "Anyway I owe you for that information, if you ever need to know something message me." They said turning and beginning to walk off.

"Wait! Do you know where the boss room is?" they paused at my shout, before shaking their head meaning no.

"Well do you know a good vendor, I need some new armour?" This time nodding affirmative.

"Come on."

After that we walked in silence for about a minute before coming to a stop in front of a small stall. The stall was covered in cloth armour and only cloth armour, there was no leather or mail armour in sight, the vendor was a short man with a lot of jewellery and piercing that jingled when he moved, he had a scar across his cheek and had short black hair.

The rat exchanging a few whispered words then the vendor handed the Rat some coins _so their being paid to bring potential customers, I wonder if this vendor any good if they have to pay to get customers. _Brushing the thought aside, I strode forward looking through the armour checking the stats of each finding that almost every piece was better than mine, which were drops from mobs. Picking out some new pieces and paying for them. The cost equalling almost half my col, but I had replace every item par my weapon.

After paying the vendor I asked, "Why is almost every item you sell better than my gear?"

"Well not many people use cloth armour considering how little bonus it gives defence. So people sell high levelled cloth armour cheaply and it's easy to get my hands on high quality armour." He spoke almost sadly.

I nodded in understanding before thanking the man and the Rat and starting to leave. I had moved about four steps when a message appeared asking if I wanted to accept Argo's friend request. Turning around I saw the Rat with almost the same message open. _So the Rat is called Argo. _

"In case you need any Information." Argo said mischievously guessing my question.

I accepted wordlessly before heading off to the gates of Starting city, expanding my senses I searched the floor for high Ki signatures. After a moment I stopped the highest were around the level of the bloodthirsty bandits. At level 12 I couldn't get very much experience from them anymore. Well if I've levelled up as much as possible I should train my skills. My parry was at 50/1000, my sprint was at 40/1000 and Basic Sword Skills was at 55/1000.

* * *

Another week passed as I train my Skills managing to get them all to just above 75, I had discovered that while the first few levels were easy it got much harder to gain a level in a skill as you got higher. I would have continued levelling my Skills but at the start of the third week I got a message from Argo, which read:

The first floor's boss room has been found, a meeting is being held tomorrow at 10:00 AM in the main plaza of the starting city. If you want to be part of the raid be there.

-The Rat

The fact that Argo used the rat rather than Argo meant that it had been sent to several people. Someone must be paying her a lot of Col to get a lot of people in the raid to minimize the chance of someone dying.

That day I headed back to the starting city to rest before the planning meeting tomorrow. I was one of the first people there arriving at 9 AM. I watched as players of differing gears entered. From people with gear that was clearly very high level to player with the starting Armour. About half of the people that arrived clearly weren't ready to take on a high levelled mob never mind a boss, whilst about a tenth of the players (I presume beta players) looked like they could take on the boss by themselves by the way they held themselves.

As 10 o'clock rolled around, a blue haired man in full mail armour with a kite shield across his back and a long sword on his hip stepped up to the centre of the gathering.

"Hello, My name Diabel and welcome to the first Boss meeting." His voice rose over the chatter but didn't seem like he was shouting.


	3. The first Boss

Ultimate Black Ace – I won't make any definite decision yet but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Kirito or Asuna.

* * *

"We need to get into groups of six." Diabel said before stopping clearly waiting for us to do that.

Looking around at all the people here I saw people that knew each other well getting into groups. Within a few moments everyone was in a group par me. As I was scanning the area for a group of 4 or 5 that I could join, I heard a voice behind me.

"Need a group?" turning around I saw a man. He was tall – at least 6 foot, bald, had brown eyes, brown skin and a battle axe across his back that was almost as tall as him. I nodded – yes. He went to manipulate his menu and a message appeared telling me Agil had invited me into a group and asking me if I wanted to accept or not. I accepted. Looking towards my health bar I saw that there were four others in the group including Agil.

"The boss is level 10 and called Illfang the kobold lord whilst the adds are level 8 and called Ruin kobold sentinels. The boss strategy is simple, when the fight starts wait for the tank group to get aggro before attacking then the group switch periodically to use potions. When the boss's health drops below 25% it switches weapons to a talwar, and its attack patterns change as well but the tactics are the same." Diabel paused here to let that information sink in.

Leaning over to Agil I asked;

"What's an add?"

"A mob summoned or called by a Boss." He explained.

"Why not just say mobs?"

"You can avoid pulling a mob and mobs don't randomly appear in the middle of a boss fight."

"Is this your first boss fight?" I nodded. "Is this your first party?" I nodded again.

"Don't worry I'll teach you all the terminology." He said whilst smiling, turning back to Diabel we waited for him to continue.

"Any questions?" Diabel asked loudly encouraging people to get queries out of the way now not during the boss fight.

There was a long moment of silence then, "I've got something to say!" clambering down from the surrounding seats of the ruined amphitheatre we were sitting in, a short man with hair that spiked in all directions and a slight beard pointed out towards the crowd, "Some of you need to apologize, to those who have died so far! I am of course talking to you beta tester. You who abandoned us from the very first day of this stupid game, you who took the best farming spots and the best quests, you should apologize and give up all your items and money!" he spoke with disgust and was clearly angered as though the beta testers were in cahoots with Kayaba.

Beside me Agil shifted before standing, "you say the beta testers abandoned us, have you got this guide book." Agil materialized a guide book in his hands showing to everyone. I remember that guide book it was a lot of help in figuring out the game and the best way to level. "This guide book was made available in every NPC vendor for free." Agil paused waiting for the man to answer.

"Of course who hasn't?" the man replied.

"This guide book was written by beta testers, everyone knew the same the only difference between you and a beta tester is a beta tester would know how to use that sword on your back." Agil looked amused with the reaction he had evoked in the Man whilst the man looked like he was about to reply when Diabel interrupted him.

"That's enough we aren't here to bicker about beta testers when there's a boss to kill, since there's no question I'll move on." Both men went to sit back down.

"Now can each group leader come here?"

Although phrased as a question is was anything but. Agil stood up and joined the five or six leader that huddled around Diabel, whilst they talked quietly. Within five minutes Agil returned.

"We're group C; we're on DPS for the boss." The other group members cheered in joy. Seeing my confusion Agil explained.

"We were sorting out which groups were going to be taken groups and which would take on the boss or adds, it's easier with just the group leaders And these guys . . ." he pointed over his shoulder at our group "are happy because being in one of the boss DPS groups gives you a good chance of getting a Last Attack." My mind reminded that last attack was in the guide book and was that whoever dealt the killing blow on a boss (field or dungeon) got a boost in experience and col gained and got some loot just to themselves.

Everyone started leaving the area slowly signifying the end of the meeting. Agil turned towards the rest of the group.

"Diabel said we are to meet outside the boss room tomorrow at 9AM. He also gave me the map data to find it. Come on we'll go rent an inn for the night, that is unless any of you want to go level before the boss." He said to us all then waited for each person to answer.

I spent the rest of the day learning about a boss fight, parties and the jargon people used in a raid. Two of the guys left to go and try to level once more before the boss fight and the rest went to try to get some better gear from vendors before the fight.

* * *

The next day I awoke to find everyone already awake and jittery with nervous energy, I was calm but I suppose that comes with being in life or death battles many times. The trek to the boss room was silent and short. When we arrived I saw giant double doors big enough for an oozaru to fit through, they were grey and were decorated with carvings of a beast killing people. There was absolute silence except for the occasional hushed muttering; the silence sent a chill down my spine _it's like these people expect to die. _There was a distinct smell of rotting meat coming from the boss's chambers?

As we appeared at the door Diabel detached from the small crowd of players and came over to greet us.

"You're just in time, we were waiting for you and another group but if they don't get here in another 10 minutes we'll start without them." Diabel was the only one who seemed in a good mood like he'd been through this before.

Five minutes passed before the last group came into sight, with the last group here Diabel stepped up to the front of the assembled players and went through the tactics and what each player was to do one last time. He finished his speech with; "we have to do this to show to all those still in the starting city that it can be done and that we can escape this hell." His was quiet but seemed to travel across the players easily.

He opened the doors and the players streamed across drawing blades, axes, maces, war hammers and even some bows whilst screaming war cries. As we entered the room I realized why the door was so big – to be usable by the boss. I looked to my left seeing Agil, a big grin on his face, spotting me looking at him he smirked; "Lets kick ass." He said before charging forward. Glancing forward I spotted the boss, a giant beast with a dog like face with red glowing eyes and spittle flying from its chops whenever it moved, it was covered in a helmet and a purple rag across it legs. It had a tail and had red skin except for its underbelly which was grey with a blue tattoo of a diamond.

As we reached the boss, we waited letting the tank group get aggro before charging so that we didn't get killed by the boss. Half a minute passed before we got the call to attack, and we did slamming into the boss unleashing multiple combos and sword skills not having to worry about dodging or the cool down. Realizing the opportunity I flowed into some of the katas that I knew that involved my sword causing massive damage. Within a minute we were bordering on getting the boss's attention and were called to ease off.

We dropped back and waited.

"It seems that whilst they can take its hits they can't hold its attention." Agil said amusement colouring his voice. He seemed completely at ease and his calm demeanour strengthened the nerves of those around him. Glancing at the boss's health bar I saw that we'd done less than 10%. Glancing around I saw several groups tangling with ruin kobold sentinels, leaning over to Agil I said.

"Shouldn't we help them? We could get more DPS on the boss."

"No. We stick to the plan, it might be slow but it will work, if you start changing things something's bound to go wrong." I nodded, whilst we could help them now without anything going wrong what if someone followed our lead in doing what they wanted.

The shout for more DPS echoed across the room, I reacted instantly my group a second behind me. Collide with the side of the boss I unleashed complex combos twisting, trying to pack in as many strikes as possible. The fight was very different to every other fight I had taken part in so far, there was no dodging or defending myself just hacking and slashing it was almost too easy as long as the tanks survived there was nothing that would go wrong. From then the fight became very mundane. Attack for a minute. Drop back. Wait for a minute or so. Rinse and repeat.

This all changed as the boss's health reached 25%. The boss dropped both weapons it held, a long sword and a buckler, reaching around its back a drawing a new weapon, a straight weapon that look like a giant's butcher knife except it had two separate points, cloth wrapped around the hilt making it look bandaged as though it was damaged. After drawing its weapon it paused for a moment almost daring anyone to attack, before shooting off, bouncing of different walls shooting around the room with surprising agility.

When it finally stopped the display of aerobatics it came to rest in the centre of the room, waiting for us to make the next move. Everyone stared almost in a trance at the boss's tactics shift; fortunately all the Ruin kobold sentinels had been eliminated.

"Stand back, I'll go." Diabel's voice cut through the silence like a knife breaking everyone from their respective trances.

_That wasn't the plan what's he doing? . . . Does he want the Last Attack bonus?_

Waiting to see what would happen, I quickly became shocked as the boss repeated its aerobatic manoeuvres this time managing to shoot forward rocketing past Diabel and slicing through him. Diabel dropped to the floor his health plummeting with him before he shattered into a cloud of polygons. The shock of the death of the leader wore off soon and most players panicked scattering, or trying to in the enclosed space.

The AI of the boss took advantage of this jumping around the room picking off one person at a time, something had to be done and now. Closing my eyes I focused my mind, considering all my options from simple to insanely complex and unlikely to happen, all these thoughts ran through my mind at high speed. Finally deciding upon my course of action my eyes shot open. _Where's the boss? _That question was soon answered as I span around to see the boss heading straight towards me.

Shifting my stance my sword began to glow changing in colour from yellow through orange to red, leaping forward and high into the air practically flying towards my target.

"Hell's fury!" I roared as loudly as I could garnering all attention, hell's fury was the highest damaging single strike technique I'd unlocked from basic sword skills so far. Pushing my Ki into my sword to strengthen the weapon and massively increase the damage done to the target, I watched as my Health dropped going past yellow and well into red and the glow around my sword increased in intensity and size.

As I drew close to the boss, it raised it weapon in an attempt to slice me into two – it was a futile attempt. I adjusted the arc of my sword slightly before it struck home slicing deeply into the boss's head going through the eye and skull causing a guaranteed critical hit. As the blade hit a thunderous boom echoed through the room less than a second later I landed, my sword still out stretched and a message appearing congratulating everyone on killing the boss. I would've have closed the message however having only just unlocked hell's fury and the massive damage it did the cool down on it was almost a minute – the only reason I hardly ever used it.

_Why? Why didn't I do that sooner, I could have saved several people's lives. It's my fault they've died. . . . I could've prevented it. _If anything this boss fight taught me that even when I thought I was ready there was always more training I could do and that even a little could make a big difference. This fight steeled my determination to finish this game and make sure as few people died as possible. All these thoughts passed through my head during the time I was stuck in the same pose because of the cool down.

When the cool down had ended I closed the initial message only for another to pop up congratulating me on the last attack and giving my some high grade leather armour, col and experience. The leather armour was pretty useless to me considering I wasn't a leather armour wearer but I could always sell it for a lot.

"You're a beta tester aren't you?" Looking to my left where the voice came from I saw that it was the man who'd blamed beta testers before, _what's his name Kibaou? _

"No actually this is one of the first games I've played." I replied already annoyed at him.

"Really? Then why are you able to do some damage? More than anyone else here." His tone suggested he thought he already knew how I could do so much damage.

"Because I'm a warrior in reality, I've fought for my life many times and the skills I learnt in real life transferred to this game well." I replied knowing that he probably wouldn't believe me even though it was the truth.

"Liar. Beta tester. Cheater." He practically spat the four words; I decided that if he wasn't going to listen to reason it was pointless to try to make him see sense.

Walking over to the group of people surrounding the boss I joined the many people checking the loot, the boss had dropped ten items four weapons, a shield, two pieces of plate armour and a piece each of mail, leather and cloth armour. The system had a loot sharing ability built in, you manipulated you menu to "roll" for items you want. Rolling is a computer generated random number from 1 to 100; the highest number got the gear. As someone called out each item several voices shouted out their computer generate numbers in a very robotic voice. I waited as my weapon was better than anything that had dropped, when the cloth item's turn came around there was only I and another rolling, I rolled a 53 whilst the other player rolled a 67. The Item went to them which was fair so I had no complaints.

As the loot had been handed out people began to leave either out towards the second floor or back to the first, watching as Kibaou left still glaring at me presumably thinking I was a beta tester, I heard a voice behind me;

"You've got to show me how you hit so high on the last attack." I turned around to so Agil smirking since he'd gotten a new Battle axe that shined unnaturally in the darkness.

"I would . . . but I don't think I can, what I told Kibaou was true I learnt that in the real world and I don't know how to teach someone it in this virtual reality, and it doesn't come without a price." I spoke softly, quietly.

"What price?" he asked confused.

"Health, using it drains your health. To kill the boss back there I went from full health to red from using it." I said solemnly. The shock was visible on Agil's face. \walking past him towards the second floor I opened my menu scrolling through it quickly and leaving the party I stopped standing next to him.

"It was nice partying with you maybe I'll see you at the next boss fight." I spoke quietly almost a whispered, trying to avoid attention realizing from Agil's reaction that everyone would want to know how to hit that high and if I stayed too long I'd be bombarded with questions.

As I was about to close my menu I noticed something new, there was now a scroll bar at the side of my skills. That meant there was a new skill I'd unlocked during the boss fight. Opening my skill menu I scrolled to the bottom and sure enough there was a new one. Battle Healing. Pressing it and looking through the description it said: **Battle healing increases the amount of health regenerated during and outside of combat, increasing the skill level increases this. To level this skill you must enter the red zone of your health bar during combat – the longer you stay in the red zone the more experience for this skill you get. This skill was unlocked by recovering health from the red zone to full health through out of combat regeneration only. **Glancing at my health almost unconsciously I realized it was back at full from when I used most of my health to strengthen my attack, _huh I guess the loot sharing took abit longer than I thought. _Whilst out of combat health was supposed to regenerate at 5% every minute (excluding Battle healing) which meant that it just less than 20 minutes since the end of the boss fight. At the minute Battle healing was at 1/1000 with an in combat regen of 1 health every 10 seconds. _If that skill increases by one health for every skill level with max battle healing someone could have 1000 health every second._

Shaking of those thoughts, I needed to get on with levelling in the second floor; I opened the slightly smaller doors that lead to the second floor. The sight was truly breath-taking compared to the dark dull boss room. There was a valley with trees and a footpath that lead out from the boss room, mountains on either side, birds flew past and animals grazed on the green grass, the sun had just risen and bathed everything in a golden glow. _That's weird it should be afternoon on the first floor. _Players moved through the valley slowly, the sense of achievement from defeating the boss faded as I am reminded that there are 99 more floors.


End file.
